Comment: referrals to children’s social care

Sara Tough, Chair of the ADCS Families, Communities and Young People Policy Committee, said:

“Keeping children safe from harm is the highest priority for all local authorities and we work in partnership with colleagues in schools, health services, the police, and others to do this. School staff see children nearly every day and have a key role in the multiagency response to safeguarding children, it is important that they receive adequate training and support to help them with this. There are very clear thresholds set out in legislation for how and when to intervene in family life, and that is right. Not all referrals to children’s social care will result in further activity, such as a child protection plan. As the FOI findings show, some referrals result in ‘no further action’ when thresholds for further activity have not been met. This means ‘no statutory social work intervention required’ not that there was no support offered. Before a decision is made every case will be assessed, discussed, and investigated to ensure all the evidence available at the time has been examined to ascertain whether concerns are substantiated.”

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